Itavia Flight 703
Douglas C-47 Skytrain · Controlled flight into terrain
From Abruzzo Airport (PSR) to Ciampino–G. B. Pastine International Airport (CIA)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 8 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 8
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Douglas C-47 Skytrain
- Aircraft type
- Douglas C-47
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- I-TAVI
- Operator
- Itavia
- Onboard fatalities
- 8
- Route
- From Abruzzo Airport (PSR)To Ciampino–G. B. Pastine International Airport (CIA)
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Sora, Lazio, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Itavia Flight 703 was a scheduled passenger flight from Abruzzo Airport to Ciampino Airport in Italy. On 30 March 1963, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain operating the route crashed into mountainous terrain near Sora, Lazio, killing all eight people on board. The investigation concluded that the accident was a case of controlled flight into terrain by pilot error.
Accident
The flight carried five passengers and three crew members. The crew consisted of pilot-in-command Ernesto Roggero, co-pilot Erminio Bonfanti, and trainee flight attendant Luigi Politta. Both pilots held a valid airline transport license and were qualified to operate the DC-3. Roggero had a total of 10,731 flight hours (2,296 on the DC-3) and Bonfanti had 832 hours, all on the DC-3. The passengers were Giuseppe Mancini, Marco di Michele, Marvin Gelber, Sergeant Angelo Lombruno, and Count Nicolò Marcello.
Flight 703 took off from Pescara at 17:36 GMT under an instrument flight rules plan and climbed to its cruising altitude of 10000 ft. The pilot requested radar guidance from a Pescara defense radar, which was not normally available for civil aircraft. The first part of the flight was intentionally carried out south of the direct route to avoid heavy cloud formations. The radar lost the aircraft at 18:12.
At 18:18 the pilot requested a clearance to the Rome non-directional beacon (NDB). The flight was later cleared to proceed to the NDB and descend to 6000 ft. At 18:28 the pilot requested to descend further. He was instructed to contact Ciampino tower but failed to do so. The aircraft was unable to tune in to the NDB and had to avoid the clouds as the radio compass was not working properly. Around 18:32 the pilot reported he could see the ground but visual contact was later lost. At 18:35 he was cleared to proceed to the Ostia VHF omnidirectional range (VOR), however he reported that his VOR was not giving reliable information.
The DC-3 struck Mount Serra Alta, 6.5 km northwest of Sora, Lazio at around 18:37, destroying the aircraft and killing all eight occupants on board. Had the airplane flown 50 m higher, the crash could have been avoided. The wreckage was reached on 1 April and the bodies were recovered on 2 April. The Carabinieri searched the area and collected materials for investigation.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The investigation determined the causes to be:
Errors by the pilot in determining his position
Particularly adverse weather conditions over the last segment of the route flown at night
Failure to report to air traffic control the departures from the flight route
Concurrence of a series of facts and circumstances that all played against the pilot
Text from the Wikipedia article “Itavia Flight 703” (revision 1370476356, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Itavia Flight 703
- Article
- Itavia Flight 703
- Revision
- 1370476356 · 2026-08-21 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4016238
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Itavia Flight 703" (page 82466561, revision 1370476356)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.